Fausse Amie
by Arcanelle
Summary: [DaTR] Dib never liked Valentine's Day. It was the day she came, and she was just one more disapointment that he would be better off forgetting.
1. Chapitre Un: La Mémoire

Author's Note: This is my twisted, sadistic, very un-romantic DaTR story. There is a lack of good DaTR on the site anymore (most of the stuff is either ZaDR, Mary Sues, etc.). The point of this? Something between wanting to write a Valentine's Day story and wanting to try my hand at DaTR. I love Tak to death. She's seriously my favorite non-major character. I know by the time this is finished, Valentine's Day will probably be over, but what the heck. :P I've been wanting to do this for a while.

"Fausse amie" is French for "false friend", singular feminine form. The masculine form is "faux ami", which coincidentally also means "false cognate", or two words in different languages that look/sound the same but mean different things.

Disclaimer: Wow, I remembered it this time! That's one for the record books! ... Anyways, _Invader Zim _owns my soul. Sadly, it is owned by Jhonen Vasquez. All I own is the DVDs and a few t-shirts.

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_Seven years ago to date, **she** came._

_For the few brief weeks that she was there, he felt things were finally starting to go right._

_Someone finally listened._

_Someone finally showed interest._

"Maybe you really **are** an alien like Dib says. A horribly disguised, disgusting… horrible one."

_She believed him._

_They were friends._

_And then his world came crashing down_.

"She's Irken, and she's after **my** job and **your** planet!"

_Of course, she was long gone._

_Defeated._

_He would never see her again._

_But then, this would not be the first time he had made a wrong assumption about her._

---

**Fausse Amie**

_Chapitre Un: La Mémoire _

Dib hated Valentine's Day. Everyone was always coupled up for _everything_. Candy hearts and roses filled the windows of every store he passed. The entire skool was covered in glitter and pink tissue paper, and the English teacher _always_ made them write sappy love poetry. It was the most god-awful, miserable thing he had ever suffered through, sitting and listening to a dozen feather-brained hormonal girls ramble about emotions they couldn't possibly comprehend, not even managing to use rhyming and meter correctly. Every single word of it was a cliché, a lie, or a fantasy.

The only exception to this was Zim's poem, which was usually some horrible montage of Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, and any other poet whose name Zim could remember; or in the event that he couldn't remember any of the poems, he would scrawl down some crude haiku, usually along the lines of: "I am in love with a hideous worm baby / She is horribly stupid and smelly / And I am normal!" As terrible as Zim was at poetry, it wasn't full of lust, or visions of what love was _supposed _to be. It was actually almost humorous, to tell the truth.

"_Now remember, class, your poetry is due tomorrow!" Ms. Anderson sighed in exasperation. "And _do_ try to make them _good_ this year."_

Not even _Mysterious Mysteries_ escaped the Valentine's Day madness. A full week of love-themed reruns! After the first five minutes, he usually got sick of it and turned it off.

Then there was that damn dance—the "Love across the Ages Ball" or some such nonsense in which you and your date were supposed to come as a famous couple. Even if he _had_ been able to get a date, he still wouldn't have gone. He never went to skool dances under any circumstance, especially not the Valentine's Day ones. The fact that Zim was going with his robotic date, likely sputtering sparks and losing bolts and screws all the while, with every intention of sabotaging the dance might have convinced Dib to go had it been on any other day, but he refused to have anything to do with the so-called holiday.

"_So… you're _not_ going to try and stop Zim from doing whatever he has planned?" The shock was enough to cause her to look up from her GameSlave 3._

"_If he wants to ruin Valentine's Day, why stop him? Besides, knowing him he'll get scared from all the glitter and run away."_

It wasn't really that he hated the idea of love. On the contrary—it was a human emotion he valued. It separated the humans from the Irkens. It was a major part in what kept their species alive. It was just Valentine's Day itself that got to him. Everything was so idealized—a picture of what love should have been in the eyes of the majority. True love paled in comparison. Everyone wanted a "fairy tale" romance—the Disney fairy tales, not the Grimm Brothers stories with all the blood and the violence. They wanted talking animals and handsome charming princes who would sweep them off of their feet. They didn't just want a happy ending; they wanted a _perfect_ ending. Seven years of fighting with an alien intent on world domination taught him that even in victory, sacrifices were made. No one could have everything.

So there he sat, the same as every year, staring at his computer screen, doing spring cleaning on his hard drive. His elbow hit the mouse, which fell toward the floor, dangling an inch from the carpet, spinning lazily from the cord. Several sheets of paper drifted to the floor, a few sliding under his desk. Dib muttered a few curses, bending down and collecting the papers, putting them back in the folder. As he reached for the last of them under the desk, though, he felt something else: a square of something, thin with a smooth, glossy finish. The rough edges rose above the glossy center.

A Polaroid.

He slid it from under the desk, holding it up to the light. He froze, the long forgotten image sinking into his mind. Jagged indigo chunks of hair framed a delicate but confident face, brilliant violet eyes shining, and that unforgettable smirk painted across her face. He sighed, tossing it into the wastebasket. Just one more disappointment he would be better off forgetting.

-----

Author's Note: The original plan was for this to be a one-shot about four times the length of this, but I think it's going to be chapters. They'll be kind of short, but they'll come out really fast, as this is for a LJ community and it's due March 3. I think I like how this is coming so far. I tried to add in some foreshadowing, but there might be a red herring or two in there, so you'll have to use your judgment to figure out what's foreshadowing and what's not.

This chapter was mostly introspective, but in the next few I'll try to focus more on setting and description. This isn't my normal writing style; I'm trying some new things out.

Remember, reviews make me happy. I'm always open to constructive criticism. :D


	2. Chapitre Deux: La Fille

Author's Note: Like I said, rapid updates. _Italics _indicate that something is being thought or being recalled (unless only one word is italicized, in which case the word is being stressed).

Disclaimer: If I owned Invader Zim, I would be making new episodes right now, with lots of Tak. And Lard Nar.

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_In the years to come, he would wonder if he did the right thing._

_With all the decisions—good and bad—he ever made, he couldn't help but wonder **"what if…?"**_

_But then, that's human nature._

_To wonder what could have been._

_It was only human._

_Irkens aren't **human**._

_And he tells himself that every day, hoping that some day he will fully believe that it was not a mistake._

_For what separates humanity and Irk but several light-years and a few dozen technological advancements?_

"The Irk was once very much like the Earth. But then, that was thousands of years ago."

_He is a paranormal investigator, he tells himself._

_He is not a philosopher._

_Everything he did, every step he took…_

_It was for the good of the Earth._

_For the **Universe**._

"Then I suppose the **ends** justify the **means**?"

_It didn't matter._

_What's done is done._

---

**Fausse Amie**

_Chapitre Deux: La Fille_

The chilly February wind wisped at his hair, the rhythm of his boots against the concrete the only sound in the silence of the city park. There was something about the freezing winter nights that helped him to clear his head, and that was exactly what Dib needed. He gazed up at the sky, the full moon shining down brilliantly. He sighed, sitting on the empty park bench.

It was an oddly pleasant feeling, being alone. The silence seemed to ring loudly, deafening in his ears. He supposed it was because he was so used to someone yelling at him at all times. He closed his eyes, letting his own thoughts overtake him.

The tranquility of the night was almost enough to make him forget about the fact that it was Valentine's Day.

Almost.

The rustling of grass, though quiet, stood out against the silence.

"Alone, as always. You're amazingly predictable, Dib."

That voice—that unforgettable accent! His eyes shot open and he jumped to his feet, staring straight at the same holographic face he had tossed into the trash bin in his room not even an hour before.

"Tak…" he murmured, eyes wide and mind racing with questions.

She smirked—the look he had always associated with her. Confident, domineering, charismatic. That smirk, he had learned, meant that she was either hiding something, wanted something, or was about to do something that could get someone killed. Many a time, it was all three.

"On the most idiotic of all your planet's holidays—the one dedicated to _love_,to being with another human—you remain alone." She began to circle him slowly. The bench would get in her way when she came three fourths of the way to closing the circle, but her steps were leisurely, relaxed. It was as though she was trying to unnerve him. "Is this because you _want _to be alone, or because you have no _choice_?"

Tak's words stung. They shouldn't have—Zim had said far worse things, things he wouldn't dare to quote, and he had felt no pain. Anger, frustration, even unbridled fury—but they never _hurt_.

"You didn't come here to chat about my love life," he told her sourly, narrowing his eyes and turning slightly with each step she took. Within a few steps it had changed from Tak circling him to both slowly rotating around each other.

"In that you are correct," she stated dryly. Their stepping was becoming melodic—the rhythm to some unheard music—as they began to fall in time with one another.

_It's almost like a dance, in some twisted way. _Dib quickly pushed aside the thought.

"I hear you have my ship," she told him nonchalantly, but with a spark of malice seeping in each word. She was fighting it. She was trying to manipulate him.

"You've heard wrong," he replied, folding his arms over his chest and furrowing his eyebrows. In the seven years since he had seen her last, she had not grown more than an inch—or if she had, he had not noticed because of his own height. How odd the sight would have looked had someone been around: a teenage boy and a girl appearing no more than ten circling each other menacingly, like wild animals ready to seize their prey.

"You're lying through your teeth," she remarked coldly, violet (though at this point, still seemingly human) eyes narrowed and fists clenched at her side. "Pity. I was hoping you wouldn't force me to fight you."

"You would fight someone twice your height?" he demanded, their paces beginning to quicken as the air around them seemed to tense. "Do you really think you would stand a chance?"

Comments like this usually sent Zim into a flurry. Because of the height-based Irken hierarchy, no Irken, he assumed, would take well to being called 'short'.

He could see the frustration building behind her holographic eyes, but not anger. She was smarter than Zim, calmer, not as easily provoked. She was calculating each move she made. She knew what she was doing from the moment she approached him.

In the years to come, he would still wonder how much of it she truly planned. Did she see it from the start? Was it her intent all along? Or had her plans simply gone awry?

"I will do what I must to accomplish my purpose," she seethed. "Will you take me to my ship, or will I be forced to use violence?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" he spat, pace increasing once more. He was starting to get dizzy from going around so many times, watching the trees and stars and park bench spin around them until the scenery was nothing but a dark blur of blue, green, brown, and gray.

"_Hm…" She raised an eyebrow, looking him over. She almost seemed impressed. "You must be smarter than the rest of them."_

"If you were stupid, I wouldn't be here right now, ready to fight you," she told him callously. "If you were stupid, I would be able to hypnotize you to tell me where my ship is. If you were stupid, you never would have kept my ship. You would have thought it was a _weather balloon _and let it be recycled. If you were stupid, you would be at your skool's dance at this very moment rather than here confronting an alien. If you were _stupid_, I would have succeeded at destroying your planet seven years ago."

"If you know me as well as you seem to think you do," he hissed, stopping abruptly and backing away, arms folded, "then you should already know the answer." He turned, beginning to walk away.

"Why you choose to fight for this planet yet eludes me, Dib," she called after him. "They don't deserve it. They've done nothing but ridicule you. Even if you were to save them, and they acknowledge it, they would not appreciate you. To let them suffer would be all but divine justice."

He stopped in his tracks, turning to face her. The moonlight illuminated her form, and even through the hologram he could see the sincerity shining in her eyes. "I—can't betray my people."

"Then you know why I must have my ship, Dib. Until death I am bound to my planet, its leaders, and its customs."

A cold chill ran down his spine at these words, the realization hitting him at last.

Perhaps she wasn't so different.

In the years to come, he would wonder how much was true sincerity and how much was no more than manipulation tactics—or if the two in any way coincided.

At that moment, he made a decision that would continue to haunt him until his death.

It had to be done, he told himself. It was the only solution…

-----

Author's Note: This chapter was a little longer than the last one. Anyways, we finally get to see our favorite female Invader in this chapter. :) Some heavy foreshadowing in this chapter, and I'm sure most of you got it.

I'm actually pretty happy with how this is turning out, and I'm usually pretty unsatisfied with my work. That's not to say that there aren't things that I don't think could be better, but I kind of like how it's turning out. It's my first actual DaTR—though my other story, _Day of Reckoning_, has some references to it—and I'm actually kind of proud of it so far. I'm thinking that it will be either four or five chapters. Depending on how much I expand on the ending. But I'm leaning toward just having four.

Reviews make me happy. I love constructive criticism. :D


	3. Chapitre Trois: Le Choix

Author's Note: I _was_ going to work on _Day of Reckoning_, but I was just too anxious to get on with this. I love _Fausse Amie_ to death… After I finish this chapter, though, I'll probably get right back to _DoR. _I think I might do a fan fiction soundtrack for this when it's finished. When I do it, I'll have it posted on my livejournal.

I intended for this to be shorter, and about half of what I wrote was spur-of-the-moment add-ins. I ended up changing a lot of this chapter, and at this point I'm kind of leaning toward having five chapters rather than four. I originally named this chapter "La Libération", but because of all the added stuff I had to push about half of the chapter to chapter four, so I had to rename it and redo the beginning. I changed the title about five times for this.

The lovely **Ailea **has mentioned the possibility of doing fanart for _FA_, as well. If you haven't read her story, _Bitter_, I'd like to take a moment to tell you to go read it. It gives a different side of Mr. Bitters, and it has the best developed OC I've seen in the _Zim_ fandom in a long time. Her story seriously rocks.

Disclaimer: Oh, if only I owned _Invader Zim_, what havoc I would create!

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_It should have been quick, painless._

_Neither of them should have suffered._

_In the time in between the moment he imagined it and the moment he attempted to carry it out, he had played it through his mind many a time._

_It wasn't supposed to happen like **that.**_

_It went wrong._

_He wasn't supposed to have any lingering doubts._

_He wasn't supposed to feel **bad** about it._

_She was the enemy._

_And yet, he had second thoughts._

_He's said the words so many times that they seem to have lost their meaning, no more than the obsessed weeping of a deranged man._

"It was an accident…."

_The intentions, no matter how pure, are irrelevant._

_It was his fault, and he could do nothing change it._

---

**Fausse Amie**

_Chapitre Trois: Le Choix_

The walk there had been silent and cold—in more ways than one. The snow cascaded around them, already beginning to accumulate. Tak hissed in pain with each flake that touched her flesh, burning as they melted and steam rising from her skin. She tapped her foot impatiently as Dib unlocked the garage.

The door clicked mechanically, sliding open. In the center sat Tak's Spittle Runner, almost exactly as it was when she had last seen it. She scowled, tracing her gloved claws over the metal sides.

As Tak inspected her ship for any damage or unsatisfactory alterations, Dib slipped off to the back of the garage unnoticed. Quietly he rummaged through a drawer, glancing over his shoulder.

She was preoccupied.

His fingers, now trembling, grasped the rubber hilt of a knife. Shallow, but sharp, and unable to conduct electricity. It was the perfect weapon for the job at hand.

He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. His breath came heavy. He closed his eyes, shaking the feelings away. He crept behind her, steps as soft as the snow falling just beyond the threshold of the garage. He forced down the lump forming in his throat as he gingerly reached forward toward her pak.

He bit his lip, curling his fingers inward. It should have been so easy! He shouldn't be having moral difficulties!

He sighed audibly, fingers slowly outstretching once more.

Tak spun around, pinning him to the wall with her fierce glare and sinking her claws into his wrist. "What the _hell _do you think you're _doing_?" she spat.

Realizing his mistake, Dib recoiled, fighting against her grasp.

How could someone so small be so fucking _strong_?

He hissed in pain, feeling her claws pierce his skin. He ripped his arm away, her claws tearing two parallel stripes across his wrist. Spatters of blood stained Tak's gloves.

This was it—no backward glances. Tak wouldn't let him just walk away when moments ago he stood behind her holding a weapon dangerously close to her pak.

Tak looked down at the blood on her fingers, smiling sadistically. "You want to kill me?"

Dib shuddered, stepping backward. He felt the soft crunch of snow beneath his boots, telling him that he was now outside.

"You want me dead?" Tak stepped forward, amethyst eyes gleaming wickedly as her holographic projection faded to reveal her true form—green skin, antennae, no ears, no pupils. Irken. "Then do it," she dared. "Try to kill me."

He tried to force his breathing to steady, vision locked on to her.

_Irken._

His mind no longer connected her with the girl who had betrayed him. As she stood in front of him, all he saw was Tak, the Invader—Tak, who looked so much like Zim. _Tak, who was in no way human_.

"I'm waiting," she seethed, stepping forward.

All coherent thoughts abandoned, he hurled himself forward. Tak, now supported on four mechanical legs, caught his wrist, grip tight. Both trembled, putting all of their force into their arms; the knife, now shaking from the force of both, was mere inches to the left of Tak's head. She growled, twisting his arm and thrusting him down into the snow.

Dib winced as he felt the icy powder come in contact with his skin, soaking through the legs of his jeans as it began to melt.

_Snow is just frozen water…._

_Water causes Irkens pain…._

He kicked one leg out, the other curling beneath him. His leg collided with Tak's, sending her plummeting face first into the snow. He could hear the water sizzling against her skin as she shrieked in pain. She pushed herself to her knees, throwing herself at him and pitching them both into the snow.

The wind bit at his ears, the snow pouring from the sky faster and heavier.

She wouldn't survive much longer like this. Enough snow would kill her.

Each one forced all their weight into the knife, the blade no more than a centimeter from Dib's nose. Tak, weakened though she was, still somehow was close to overpowering him. If she got the knife from him, it would be over—his one chance, his single sliver of hope… gone.

As one of Tak's mechanical legs swooped under, dangerously close to his head, he rolled aside, kicking her against the side of the garage. She screeched as a mound of snow slid from the roof, covering her. She snarled, emerging from the snow, steam rising from her skin.

"When you are dying, Dib, remember this: I had every intention of doing this _peacefully_," she seethed, starting toward him.

He stood up, clumps of snow falling from his clothes and hair, breathing rushed and shaking—both from the cold and an odd mix of fear and adrenaline. "But you knew, despite your _intentions_, that it wasn't going to happen."

Her eyes narrowed. "_No one_ can tell the future," she said quietly. "We make assumptions, predictions…. I chose to be optimistic, but apparently I chose wrong." Her voice rose as she called out to him, "Do you still plan to kill me?"

"Only if you still plan to destroy the Earth," he said firmly, the knife shaking in his hand; his knuckles were white from his firm grasp on the weapon.

Tak started to say something, but hissed in pain as she fell to her knees into the snow. Instinctively Dib rushed forward, sliding to his knees at her side, heart racing. He could hear the soft electronic crackling coming from her pak.

"D-damn it…" she stammered, skinny arms shaking as she tried to support her weight. "This—whatever you call the falling frozen liquid—"

"Snow." He gasped, "It must have damaged your pak…."

The harsh, chilly wind howled as the onslaught of snow rushed around them, issuing a shudder out of Dib.

"Can you walk?" he asked coolly, grabbing her arm and glancing toward the garage.

"No more than ten seconds ago you were trying to kill me, and now you're worried about my health?" she rasped, shrugging her arm away. "What the fuck _are_ you doing?" she wheezed, an echo of her earlier words.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "I don't know…" he muttered. "Just… please, let me help you." He dropped the knife in the snow and grabbed her by the arm, this time without resistance. She was cold, he noted as he scooped her into his arms. As he looked over her tiny form, he couldn't help but wonder if Irkens could get hypothermia.

_What does it matter if she gets sick? _he asked himself. _Why does it matter what happens to her?_

He set the petite alien down. She snarled, forcing herself upright against the wall and cursing in her native tongue as she watched the blizzard outside, the white blanket spilling into the garage.

Dib closed the door to prevent it from further seeping in, collapsing to the ground and putting his head in his hands. The knife still lay outside, likely lost in the snow.

What _was_ he doing? He could have used the snow to his advantage! She was weakened, unable to fight back. He wanted her dead, so why did he care all of the sudden? He shouldn't be helping his enemy!

He watched her shape, outlined in the relative dark, shaking and sputtering in the corner. Tak shuddered in the cold night air, bringing her knees to her chin. She was freezing, and he could tell she was slowly fading. He bit his lip, pushing himself to his feet and walking over to her.

_I'm going to hate myself for this later, _he thought, shrugging off his coat and tossing it to the small alien. He could already feel the difference, a sudden coldness washing over him. "Just take it." Tak didn't protest, wrapping herself in his leather coat. It was a seemingly small luxury to afford a dying Irken, but watching him quaking in the cold, teeth chattering and his own breath visible told her otherwise.

She studied him, wondering why he would bother with such a thing when she was going to die anyway.

"It's because…you're _human_…," she muttered, answering her own unspoken question. He looked back at her, shocked. Her voice was strained, but her words were clear enough to understand. "The most peculiar quality of your people is your ability… ARGH!" She winced in pain, shifting positions. "Your ability to feel empathy, even for those whom you _hate_. It's something…I'll never quite understand."

"It's not as complicated as you make it seem," he murmured. "I just saw someone who was cold."

-----

Author's Note: As one of my reviewers pointed out, this is really one of the most philosophical things I've written. There's a lot of deeper meaning to everything. It's more idea-centric than plot-centric. This is one of those things that, if you wanted to, you could probably pick apart and find tons and tons of symbols, motifs, etc. in, some of which I haven't even really realized adding. I'm actually really proud of this, believe it or not.

We're over half-way done here! Wow! And I actually wrote in semi-fluff! Originally it was supposed to be really dark and sadistic. But I sort of decided to add in some snow just for scenery and it changed the whole chapter. Just goes to show what snow can do for a story.

Also, this story has the second highest hits count of all my stories, and yet it has the second lowest review count of any of my multi-chapter stories. Come on people, please? I like to know that all those hits aren't just monkeys on computers clicking the link over and over again. So please review. :)


	4. Chapitre Quatre: La Libération

Author's Note: I was originally going to work on _DoR _this week like I said I would, but I had two tests and an essay this week and didn't get to do anything on it, and this is due by March 3, so I have to hurry and finish the next chapter.

Thanks to all of my readers! _Fausse Amie_ has over 300 hits (I think it had 356 last time I checked the stats), beating out all of my other stories—including my _Inuyasha _stories, which despite their horribleness (most of them were wrote 7th to 8th grade) somehow managed to get a lot of publicity.

Disclaimer: Do I _look_ like an evil Nickelodeon-drone? Yeah, thought not.

-----

_He never **meant** for it to happen._

_There was once a time long ago when he dreamed of the moment a dying alien would be sprawled at his feet._

_A moment of glory, victory, **vindication**—the payoff for years of failure and disgrace._

_The memory and the fantasy were **worlds** apart._

_Remorse…_

_Indecision…_

"Oh, **God**…. What have I done?"

_A thousand other things he had never considered._

_Black and white._

_Right and wrong._

_**Good and evil**._

_Everything was blurred._

_A giant glob of **gray**, swirling and twisting in front of his eyes._

_But one fact remains…._

_The past is set in stone._

---

**Fausse Amie**

_Chapitre Quatre: La Libération_

Tak moaned in pain, twisting within the folds of the thick quilt. She had refused to be moved inside and Dib objected to leaving her alone, but Dib had managed to find a few blankets stowed away in the garage. The darkness was thick, even with the small light offered from the sole bulb hanging on the ceiling.

She could feel it—gradually the water was corroding away at the sensitive information encoded into her pak. If it touched the main drive—which was quite possible—death was imminent. Slow and agonizing—it could take up to hours—she would loose everything, memories becoming hazy and fading away, delirium setting in, knowledge evaporating, coordination failing.

She turned her wrist over, gazing longingly at the self-destruct button. An instant death. The only drawback was the explosion. This was designed to prevent Irkens from being tortured into revealing information, and because of electronic memory the pak had to be destroyed completely. The result would be a crater the size of Dib's house, and if he died… Well, _someone _had to make Zim suffer, and she very well couldn't do so if she was no longer alive.

Tak closed her eyes, searching her memory. She had first met Zim at the Academy… or had she? Ten years of her life had vanished, a gaping hole in her memory.

"Damn it…" she hissed, clenching her fists. "GONE!" she cried, pounding her fist onto the ground.

Dib's eyes darted toward her. "What's gone?"

"_Everything_," she snapped. "Chunks of my life are falling away! I can't even remember the fucking trip from Devastis to Earth! In an hour I won't be able to form a coherent sentence!"

Dib hesitated. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not unless you're a magician now, as well," she growled, pulling the silken material tight around her shoulders. "I'll just die overwhelmed by an audible, piercing pain, not able to remember my own name, not even able to move on my own…"

"I'm sorry…" he murmured, looking away and letting his eyes close. "This is _my_ fault."

"You _wanted _to _kill_ me," she reminded him, her voice straining. "You… you…" Tak blinked, shaking. "I can't remember any more."

_Had _he tried to kill her? Another hole in her memory. Gaps between years… Strides of time which she couldn't even remember existing during… but she had to… of course she was there… She squinted in the dark, trying to make out the face. Who was he? Zim…?

_No. Not Zim. Someone else…_

"Who… are you…?" a voice asked. Her voice? Was it? It must have been… but it sounded so far away.

Even in the dim garage, she could make out the injured expression at her words. "_Dib_. Do you remember?" he pleaded.

_Dib…_

She fumbled through memories—at least, the few that remained. The voice… the face… the name…. She _knew_ him.

"You were smaller then…" the distant voice—her own—garbled. "Idiotic holiday…" Everything was fuzzy, echoing… It felt like ice was coursing through her body. "You…" the distant voice—was it hers or Dib's? It must have been hers… she didn't' remember saying it… it sounded like an indistinct ringing in the background. "You…gave me meat."

Dib felt his whole body go numb, quivering. It was the only year since kindergarten he had ever bothered giving anyone a valentine….

"And… Zim…" she blathered, all reason abandoned, "he trapped me… the snack machine… seventy-five years…"

He could almost feel the pain, the suffering, the delusion… Each second her suffering was multiplying.

"It was… what planet?" she continued. "Zim… destroyed… I…" She wailed, "I can't—hurts…!"

His hands were shaking, watching her slowly slip away. He wanted her death to be quick so that neither would suffer….

Tak was right. Even an enemy's misery was enough to tear apart a human….

A pair of wire clippers lay in front of him.

"I'm dying…" she mumbled, "I'm dying… and I can't remember why…"

The instrument was cold in his hand.

"Turn around," he instructed softly, voice shaking and heart racing.

Her back now to him, she continued to babble nonsensically, her voice growing more distant with each passing word, "Zim… must have been… always doing something…."

There was a long crack across the top of her pak, running midway down the side. Was that there before…? He couldn't remember, but it had to have been. It couldn't have been from when he threw her against the garage—it would take a much greater force to break through.

_It was the cause of her death, not me…_, he told himself. He couldn't be responsible for death… He was the hero…

He shivered, prying one of the violet plates from the pak and exposing an intricate network of wires in a thousand different colors connecting types of hardware he had never even dreamed could exist. He could feel himself becoming lightheaded.

"Which wire do I cut…?" he murmured, eyes darting frantically. He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, deciding to do the only thing he could. He chose a wire, and—hands shaking (_Oh, God… What if it blows up? What if it doesn't work? What if it **does** work?_)—he clamped down on the wire. Tak screeched, tremors jolting through her.

_Hitting the wrong wire makes it **worse**… I have to find the right one…_

Hit bit his lip, finding what appeared to be the main drive. Everything was in Irken… He had no idea what he was doing…

"Mimi…" Tak whispered, "at the park… under the tree… I told her to stay…"

_She must be hallucinating…_

_Please be right…_

He clamped the clipped down on the main wire, watching the lights inside of the pak fade.

"Dying…" she murmured. "But… Mimi… cold… Find her…."

He knew from experience with Zim that normally and Irken could survive around ten minutes without their pak, but in Tak's condition? Seconds, maybe…

It was his fault…

One of them had to die—it was inevitable. Otherwise it would be an endless battle; a tiresome, pointless war until one of them gave up. They were tied to their planets.

Slaves…

Dib wasn't sure if he believed in an afterlife—heaven, hell, reincarnation—but wherever Tak would be after her death, he hoped only for one thing….

"You're free…" he whispered, biting back a sob as her figure went limp.

Another rotten Valentine's Day better off forgotten…

-----

Author's Note: I finished this way earlier than I thought! It honestly took me forever to get started on this chapter. :'( I killed Tak…and I am very sorry…

I already have the next chapter planned out, and it should be out in a day or two. It should be the longest chapter—mostly on aftermath. It should return to the general style of the first chapter.

Reviews are always appreciated, and constructive criticism is more than welcome.


	5. Chapitre Cinq: La Restauration

"Farewell, my fallen idol and false friend.  
We had such hopes, and now those hopes are shattered!"

—"Down Once More/Track Down this Murderer,"_ The Phantom of the Opera_

---

Author's Note: Apparently killing Tak makes me a horrible person. I ask for your forgiveness, and I hope this chapter makes up for it.

Counting by hits, since this is over 500, I consider this my most popular story. With 13 favorites (third highest) and 29 reviews (fourth highest) for the first four chapters, I consider it to be my second most successful. I'm pretty stunned, since I actually think _Day of Reckoning _is better written, but I suppose it's more so because of the relationship than anything. Anyways, here is the final chapter.

Disclaimer: Do I even need to say it? Really, these things make me depressed.

-----

_The scalpel hovered over the lifeless body._

_For years he had dreamed of this: the chance to dissect an** alien**!_

_At last, everything he needed to know about Irk was at his fingertips._

_His hand quaked._

_This was because of** him**._

_If not for him, she would still be alive._

_She had been his enemy during her **life**, but in death…_

_He would hardly wish for **his** body to be sliced apart by an alien on his death._

"I'm sorry…"

_He fought back tears as the scalpel clattered to the floor._

_In death, all is forgiven._

---

**Fausse Amie**

_Chapitre Cinq: La Restauration_

At last the raging blizzard had ended, leaving a thick frozen blanket over the ground. He gently laid the deceased alien beneath the tree in his backyard, picking up the shovel as he began to dig. The thought that she was dead—_a corpse!_—brought a queasiness up into his throat, but after a few minutes of the steady rhythm of the shovel against earth the feeling subsided.

This was not the first time he had seen death, but Tak's death was hardly comparable to any of them. He couldn't simply flush her like his goldfish when he was seven; no, this was different even from the death of his mother. Legally, Tak did not exist. She couldn't even be given a proper funeral. He assumed that the least he could do was perform a makeshift burial and service.

It had taken several hours, and his hands were blistered and calloused from the nonstop work, but at last he had dug a grave a few feet deep. It was sufficient, at least. He had nothing to serve as a coffin, but he spread a seldom used sheet over the hole. He turned back to Tak, kneeling beside her. He was surprised at how easily the inactive pak detached from its host. He set it on an area where the grass was exposed so as not to damage it any further.

He gently lifted her. He could someone so small and fragile be so powerful?

As he tenderly placed her in her crude grave, he noticed that his coat still encased her. He felt the chilly wind bite at his ears, reminding him how much warmer it would be within the confines of the faux leather.

But then, he could always buy a new one.

He stood up straight, head bowed and eyes set on the Irken. He knew very little about Tak's life, but he silently recalled as much as he could. How much of her friendship was truly false?

Had she been born human, the two likely could have become good friends—possibly even more… He squeezed his eyes closed tightly, feeling the moisture build up behind them.

It was getting late, he realized, pulling the sheet over her face so that she was completely covered. Picking up the shovel, he began to cover her with the mound of dirt and snow. Fortunately for him, this was much quicker than the initial digging, as the dirt was already loose.

---

He wasn't sure whether or not it counted as a last request or not, but her last words were, nonetheless, "find Mimi." He couldn't think of a single movie in which the final request of a dying man (or in this case, female alien) was refused. Of course, as he traversed the icy park alone, he couldn't help but wish that he had taken back his coat.

It seemed like such a simple task, but finding a tiny robot with expert camouflage ability in the midst of over a foot of snow was hardly a trivial achievement. The only real clue she had given him was that Mimi was beneath a tree, and there were dozens of them in the park. After over twenty minutes of digging barehanded through the snow in the dead of night in only jeans and a sweater he had worn in hopes of a little added warmth, he was ready to give up.

Mimi likely would have been abandoned completely had he not decided to take a shortcut through the center of the park, but as he plodded through the snow, he felt his foot hit something, a metallic sound reverberating against his boot. He furrowed his eyebrows, kicking aside the snowy covering to reveal Tak's SIR-unit.

Its eyes were dark and its body dented. Tak had likely left it in the park because, like her ship, it was dysfunctional. It was broken, but salvageable. He leaned over, brushing the snow off of Mimi and cradling her in his arms. If she was anything like Tak's ship, he might be able to reprogram her to respond to him.

Maybe… Just maybe…

He rushed home, the cold forgotten as he dashed through the front door, tracking in a mix of melted snow and dirt over the floor and not even bothering to shut the door.

"Hey! Do you _mind_?" Gaz snapped at him, not so much as turning her head. She hardly had the chance to continue before he had vanished into his father's lab. He heard her growl, slamming the door closed with a force that resonated through the entire house. He could deal with his sister later—right now, he had work to do.

He set the robot down on the table, opening up its head to reveal the system of wires. It reminded him somewhat of his earlier task of deactivating Tak. This time, however, he was restoring, not destroying.

Getting Mimi to run was time-consuming, but not particularly hard. The most difficult part had been finding an alternative to its missing memory disk. He had worked well into the night and most of the next morning. At last, two correct wires connected and the two circular red eyes illuminated. If he had succeeded in reprogramming it, Mimi would respond to a voice command from him. A simple request would be best to start.

"Mimi, stand up."

The robot jumped to its feet, saluting obediently. Dib smiled, standing up and walking toward the door. "Come."

---

He had been deprived of his room for the past twenty-four hours, it seemed. Most of the previous night was spent fixing Mimi rather than sleeping. A glance at his watch told him that it was already nearly midnight. He rubbed his eyes, yawning as he reentered his room after what felt like years. Mimi tagged close behind him, letting the cat-like holographic projection fade into her normal robotic form.

Dib sat on his bed, pulling off his boots and kicking them aside. He pulled back the blankets, sliding into his bed, but his eyes fell on the wastebasket across the room. He sighed, putting his bare feet onto the chilly floor and creeping to the trash bin. The faint edge of a Polaroid picture was visible in the dark. Dib bent over, reaching into the trash and retrieving the snapshot.

It was slightly crinkled, but otherwise undamaged. He smoothed it out between his hands, setting it gently on his nightstand next to Tak's pak. He smiled sadly, climbing back into his bed.

---

_The very next Valentine's Day, he stood in front of the very place in which **she** has been buried._

_It was cold, but not so much as the last year._

_The grass had grown over the turned up earth, leaving no evidence that anything lay beneath the surface._

_No evidence, that is, except a square of metal._

_He read the engraved words for neither the first nor the last time in his life._

"Tak

False friend and

beloved enemy."

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Author's Note: First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone who has read this, everyone who has reviewed this, and everyone who has encouraged me to update. It's the first multi-chapter story I've actually finished in a long time, and I'm rather proud of this. Unsatisfied, as I assume all authors usually are, but relatively proud. Granted it hasn't had as much publicity as, say, Betryal's _Xenophilia_, and at this point and the length of my story, I wouldn't expect for it to, but considering it is my first attempt at romance (if you can so call it) for the _Zim_ fandom I believe that the turnout was quite stunning. I'll be working on more Dib and Tak things in the future, both as a couple romantically, as enemies, as teammates, and separately. I hope you'll all continue to read and review the things I put out in the future.


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